


The Way of the Wilds

by TheCookieOfDoom



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: M/M, wildling!Jon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-14 12:10:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10536195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCookieOfDoom/pseuds/TheCookieOfDoom
Summary: “Show me your face, wildling,” Robb ordered, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. The wildling did not move, keeping their head down. Didn’t so much as speak or look up, until man behind them jerked down their fur hood, baring the man’s face. Familiar brown eyes stared at him, devoid of emotion. The lower half of his face was still covered, but Robb would recognize those eyes anywhere.





	

“Show me your face, wildling,” Robb ordered, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. The wildling did not move, keeping their head down. Didn’t so much as speak or look up, until man behind them jerked down their fur hood, baring the man’s face. Familiar brown eyes stared at him, devoid of emotion. The lower half of his face was still covered, but Robb would recognize those eyes anywhere.

“Take him and put him in a cell, I want to talk to him. Alone.” The man rose a brow at that, as if to say ‘I’ve heard that before, and I know what you say isn’t what you mean.’ Robb’s cheeks warmed, but he chalked it up to an effect of the cold as he followed the guard and the wildling. ‘Wildling’, it was almost a sweet term, like something that would refer to a small animal; a squirrel, or rabbit perhaps, rather that the vicious peoples it belonged to. He never thought he would see the day when this man became one of those vicious people.

Robb waited a few minutes for the guard to leave, the only sound coming from the shackle’s chains clanking together. He and the wildling simply stared at each other. Then, finally, the wildling spoke.

“Will you not speak to me? After all these years, I would have thought to get at least a hello.”

“What happened to you Jon? When I last saw you, you were going to swear yourself to the Night’s Watch. I expected to see you all in black, not white.” The color of a traitor.

“When I last saw you, you were Lord of Winterfell in father’s place. Now father is dead, and you’re a king. Things change, people change.”

Rob clenched his jaw, not aware that he was clenching his fist around the grip of his sword. “You’ve become a traitor. Why, Jon? How could you betray your brothers?”

“I thought the Night’s Watch was where I belonged. But I was shown a better way.” Finally, Jon moved. He stepped forward, reaching out to Robb through the bars of his cell. Robb stepped back, out of Jon’s reach, and he could have sworn he saw a flash of heart across Jon’s features, but it was gone before he could be sure. “The wildlings don’t care who I am, I’m not a bastard to them.”

“You weren’t a bastard to the Night’s Watch—“

“Yes, I was.”

“Why are you here, Jon? Why didn’t you stay north of the wall with your newfound family?”

“I came back for you. I want you to leave all of this, to come with me. There’s nothing for you here; Westeros will destroy itself and you along with it, if you stay. But if you come with me, we can finally be together, like we used to talk about. The wildlings don’t care, there’s people like us and no one bats an eye—“

“We were just boys; we didn’t know what we were talking about. We will _never_ be together.”

“We _could_ be. If you leave with me now, tonight, we _can_.”

“I will not betray me people, Jon!” He had moved closer as he spoke, gripping the bars as his voice raised. “Not even for you,” he said, quieter now, voice hoarse. There was betrayal in Jon’s pretty eyes now as he looked at Robb, as if he had truly believed that Robb would have left with him.

“You will _die_ here,” he said, his own voice barely above a hoarse whisper. “Just as father did.”

“Then I will die with my honor intact.” Unlike _you_. Jon looked at if he had been struck by the unspoken words that hung between them.

“You won’t kill me, not when you still love me. You aren’t that cold.”

“Perhaps once, I loved you. But you are not the man I said goodbye to. He wouldn’t have betrayed his vows and his people.”

“I’m the same man I’ve always been.” He reached for Robb again, his eyes pleading. “I’m still me, and I still love you just as I always have—“

Robb grabbed Jon’s wrist, his teeth bared in a grimace as he snatched Jon’s hand away from his face. “Don’t touch me.”

“My touch didn’t used to repulse you so. At one time you would beg for it.”

“As you said, things change. People change.”

“Robb, please—“

“Make your peace with the gods, Jon. Tomorrow you go to meet them.”

“You don’t need to do this. You don’t have to leave with me if you don’t want to, just let me go; I’ll leave, I won’t come back, I _swear_ it.”

“You’ve already broken your vows once before, Jon, your word is worthless.”

“You _know_ me. I would never betray you.”

“I am the king of the north. By betraying the Night’s Watch, you _have_ betrayed me.”

“ _Robb_ —“ he was cut off by a hiss of pain, Robb’s grip on his wrist growing more painful than he could bear. He was hurt more by the fact that he couldn’t tell if Robb was doing it intentionally or not. He tried to pull his hand away, but Robb was relentless, refusing to let go. “Please—you’re _hurting_ me.”

Eyes widening, Robb immediately released Jon. Jon pulled his hand towards himself, rubbing at his wrist; his eyes never left Robb’s, and he watched as the fury in them was replaced by something akin to horror. He backed up, then, away from the bars until his back was hitting the opposite wall. He looked Jon over, clad in mottled white and cradling his wrist to his chest, a faint light of hope still shining in his eyes as he looked at Robb. Robb told himself it was just the firelight as he turned his back on Jon to leave him once more.

“Farewell, Snow.”

***

Robb waited, his features carefully schooled into an emotionless mask, taught to him by his father in preparation of becoming a lord. He had always known that this was something that would be required of him eventually; executions. It came with being a lord, and he’d been raised that the man who gave sentence struck the sword. He had thought he was ready for that. He had executed his own men, even, with only brief hesitation. Now, waiting for Jon to be brought to him, his hand rested on his sword, grip too tight. It was a bad habit, and it always presented when he was nervous, or gripped with fear. He didn’t know which it was right now, likely a toxic mix of both. His free hand trembled at his side, he clenched his hand in an attempt to make it stop.

Finally, as the sun crept over the horizon, Jon was dragged before him. His eyes were bright; there was a fire in them, but also a peacefulness that hadn’t been there before. He looked to have followed Robb’s advice in making his peace.

“Kneel, wildling,” Robb ordered, his voice as cold as the snow that has surrounded him all his life. Jon was not given a chance to comply, the men behind him shoving him to his knees. The shackles at his wrists and ankles clanked together with the sudden rough movement. The guards stepped away, Jon turning his head to watch until he believed they were far enough away to not hear his words.

“I’m glad it’s you doing it,” he said. He looked as if he truly believed it.

“Why in the seven hells would you be glad about that?” Jon grinned at him, and by the gods’, was that really the first time in years that Robb had seen him smile?

“Because, now I’ll be with you until the end of your days. Whether you want me or not, I’ll haunt you after this.” Robb’s hand twitched, and he ached to reach out to Jon one last time. He didn’t, his hands instead remaining at his side, where they belonged. He couldn’t afford to lose his composure now, with his men watching him, waiting to see if he really could do it. Only a few of them knew who Jon was, the one’s that had been with Robb when he’d found out himself. Robb couldn’t let them think he would pardon people just because they were close to him—no, had once been close to him.

“Jon Snow, you have been branded a deserter of the Night’s Watch and a traitor to the crown. I, Robb Stark, King in the North, sentence you to death. Do you have any last words?”

Jon looked up at his half-brother  with not a single light of contempt in his eyes as Robb had been expecting. “The winter is coming,” he said in a hollow repetition of what he had grown up hearing, the words of House Stark. “A shame you’ll have no one to warm you when it does.”

For a long moment, Robb couldn’t tear his gaze away from Jon’s. As much as he had changed over the last months, so too had Jon changed. ‘Next time I see you, you’ll be all in black,’ he had told Jon. His brother was not clad in all black now, but a mottled gray and white. Like a wildling.

“Gods’ save you, Jon,”  he murmured, so that only his brother would hear him. As Jon laid his head down and bared his neck, Robb drew his sword. 


End file.
